Guest rant: Curse of the comments.

Yay! Another guest rant! Sorry for the long absence... but I'm back, and with a somewhat controversial one.

Ok, here is a rant for your rant blog:

Why is it that so many of the "BIG" bloggers like to get their panties in a ruffle over comments readers leave? Half the time, it doesn't even seem like the comment left was a big deal. This leads me to believe that either their egos are way inflated and therefore they're hypersensitive, OR, they're using it as an excuse for more self-promotion and blogging material. Like, really? Someone left a possibly-shitty comment on your blog? Now you have to tell the entire world, Facebook, Twitter and your more civilized readers all about it? Naturally this is followed by a bunch of ass-kisser-readers jumping to the defense on a totally lame faux-assault. Last I checked, that's what the "delete comment" feature is for!

End rant.

So, what do you think? Is this a pet peeve of yours, too? I'm torn, because some of the comments are actually offensive, but I do read certain bloggers who have a tendency to overreact.

Jon Stewart shakes his fist, too!

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So much for integrity in "journalism."

I am totally aware of the fact that tabloids and gossip magazines are not typically concerned with being factual. In fact, I know that 99% of what is written in gossip magazines is false. But, every once in a while, a story pops up that is so blatantly a fabrication that it makes me physically shake my fist!

Case in point: John Mayer is dating Jennifer Aniston. They both went to Mexico for New Years. Also, in a completely unrelated story - John Mayer hosted on his blog a holiday interfaith cake baking contest in which people sent in photos of the cakes they baked and he and his friends chose two to win guitars.

There was a "news story" in a gossip rag (I think it was Star, which I never trust and/or read but caught my attention in the Ralphs line the other night) about John and Jennifer having spent New Years in Cabo San Lucas. This "article" was sort of like the Star "article," talking about the grand old time they had.

So where's the problem? The problem can be found on John Mayer's blog. The "article" ends with a "quote" from John Mayer: "John, meanwhile, passed on group socialising and headed back to the U.S where he gushed about his time with Jen. John wrote on his blog, 'I had the best holiday season since I was a little boy.'"

But wait! If you read that actual blog entry, he's not talking about Mexico! He's talking about the holiday interfaith cake contest he held, and the fun he and his peeps had looking at all the photos that were sent in and baking their own cake! Here's the ACTUAL quote:

"And to everyone who submitted a cake, both into an oven and to my blog, THANK YOU. I was blown away at the time you took to make such brilliant looking creations. Because of you I had the best holiday season since I was a little boy. I hope you all felt a little merrier for it, too."

Seriously? How starved for a story are you that you take a quote that was about cake and make it sound like it was about their relationship? That so called "reporter" should be hog tied and dunked in a well.

SO absolutely ridiculous.

Yes, this pretty much sums it up.

Thanks for the link, Shosh!

Now open for submissions!

All right! I am now accepting rants (anonymous or not, whichever you'd like) to post on this blog! Here's what to do:

1) Write a rant.
2) Email it to me at: ishakemyfistatyou@gmail.com
3) Let me know if you would like it to be anonymous, or if you don't mind me saying who it was written by.

I'm not sure exactly how it will work - most likely, I'll post one submission a day, so depending on how many people email me, yours could be super quick to post, or take a few days. Be patient! I'll post everyone's! (Unless it's inappropriate content - I don't want spam, etc on here!)

Let the ranting begin!

I have an idea.

People seem to identify with some of the posts on this blog more than others, and it got me to thinking this morning that maybe everyone else would like a place to rant, too!

Alexa just wrote a post about how there are certain things we'd like to talk about but can't. And it was trippy for me, because I was JUST thinking about that.

Just this morning I was thinking about opening up an email account for people to email their rants for me to post on this blog. Sort of like Her Bad Mother's Basement, but more with ranting than confessions.

So - is it worth me creating an email address for this site? Would you have things you'd like to anonymously rant about here that you couldn't on your own blog?

I shake my fist at you, "reply all"!!!

I hate the "reply all" function on email. Ok, maybe hate is a strong word. I strongly dislike the misuse of the "reply all" button. I get it. There are certain situations where everyone needs to know the response. But 99.9% of the time people use this button it is completely and utterly unnecessary.

For example: Someone sends an email asking what time a group is supposed to meet and copies everyone in the group.

OK to "reply all": The person responsible for organizing sends an email back with the time. Everyone needs to know, so "reply all" is appropriate.

Not OK to "reply all": One of the group members sends an email about how they will be five minutes late because they are having a colonoscopy that day. No one needs to know that. Telling one person you would be late (and not mentioning the reason) would have been perfectly acceptable.

Am I the only one who gets irritated by this?

New

I re-vamped the page - what do you think, readers?

Like it?
Hate it?
Couldn't give a shit?

Leave a comment and let me know!

Social networking.

I have a love/hate relationship with social networks. I love them because I get to connect with people I don't talk to all the time. I hate them because they often create a false sense of familiarity that really irritates me.

I get it. We're "friends." But that doesn't mean you can ask extremely personal questions. It doesn't mean that you should assume that I want to hang out with you.

I'm sorry. That sounds harsh.

But it's true. If I want to hang out with you, I will cultivate a relationship. I will take the time to listen to you, see how you're doing. To call. To email. To converse. I will not invite myself to things, or put pressure on you to take time out of your busy schedule to pay attention to me.

If it's impolite to do it in person, why is it ok to do it online?

Blogger.com, why do you hate me?

I have my comment settings set up so that I should be receiving an email when I am left comments. I like getting comments, and I like knowing that I got comments.

But guess what I'm not getting? Comment notificiations!

I shake my fist at you, Blogger!!!

I have tried researching the problem, and see that it's not just me. On the Blogger Help "Known Issues" page, I found this entry that says "Some comment notification emails are not being sent. We are investigating this issue. Update, 12/6: This has been fixed. — latest update on Thursday, December 06, 2007" Well, it may have been fixed, but it's back again!

Then I looked on the Blogger Help Group pages. And I found several posts about this issue. One of the things they say to try is changing your email to a different host. So, I switched mine from my Hotmail to my Yahoo. This **seems** to be working, but the issue is still making me mad!!!!!!

Why did it stop working in the first place!? Grrrr. And argh.

**Update: Hmm. Maybe the title of this post should have been "Hotmail, why do you hate me?"**